About the <SMOKING ZODIAC> painting series
Over centuries, the ego of man has obsessed over two ideas: self and life. The obsessions manifested in many ways, one form being astrology: gazing at the stars to find answers about ‘myself’ and ‘my longevity’. While fighting time, and losing the battle every time, mankind has on the other hand obsessed over the immediate gratifications, often which shortens and threatens the very life we hold on to so tightly. The smoking in my paintings represents this: the irony in modern day’s memento mori to be exact. The reminders of our mortality are ignited and fleetingly put out.

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About the <SMOKING ZODIACS> installation at 1 Granary, London, UK

Each of the 12 <SMOKING ZODIAC> paintings borrowed the function of collected vintage jackets, and installed like regular paintings on the wall. Viewers were encouraged to interact with the artwork; they took off the work from the wall, wore the work, and walked out of the exhibition space. The jackets’ mobility activated by the viewers ultimately took the paintings out of the white cube space. This action explored the concept of art as an embellishment: the direct physical embodiment of the work acted as a literal metaphor of art as a social commodity. On the other hand, the attachment of the artwork to vintage garments with no value challenges the hierarchy between fashion and art. Art is continuously utilized to decorate fashion; yet in this scenario, the art is freeriding the function of the garment. With a function of being "worn", the art achieves freedom to leave the static white cube space, and also accumulates "value" that did not exist to either the second-hand garment or to the painting itself.